about minerva

Little about me

My name is Minerva Ranila Hieroms. A single mother of two wonderful young adults, who will make any mother proud. Working for more than 25 years in the aviation industry, I have gained plenty of experience and knowledge of the aviation industry, different cultures, communication and human behavior. In January 2014, I founded my own training company of which I am the Director, trainer, coach and translator. Besides training my company is also offering translation services to conferences, meetings, trainings, presentations and lawsuits.

Graduating in Hotel Management at the Cornell University in Puerto Rico helped me form the right service attitude, which served me very well during my complete journey. At a young age I started as a flight attendant and worked my way up to Manager Cabin Services. I flew as senior cabin attendant on board of different types of small, medium and heavy aircrafts, among others: the Fairchild, DASH 8, MD 80, DC 10, MD 11, B747-400, B767, A310, F-100, 737-300/400 and the ATR 43-52.

Besides my flying career, I also was Cabin Safety Instructor for Dutch Antillean Airline, Air ALM, Dutch Caribbean Airline, KLM, Sobel Air, Arkefly and Suriname Airways. In this position my function primarily was to safeguard the safety on board of the aircraft, to ensure that the safety policy was implemented on board, to train all cabin staff and to ensure all manuals were updated. I selected, recruited, trained, coached, and evaluated cabin attendants for over 15 years.

After bankruptcy of our national carrier in 2004, I taught different languages (Papiamentu, English, French and Spanish) and hospitality trainings at various secondary schools and respectively at vocational schools in Curacao. Teaching at different schools gave me an exceptional insight into the practices of language acquisition and good practice of behavior. In 2009, I had the opportunity to follow the FAA Aviation English Instructor course, in Oklahoma, which gave me the chance, together with my partner, to make all the local air traffic controllers of Curacao, Bonaire and Aruba compliant with the ICAO English requirements.

In 2012 – 2013, I was recruited to set up the Customer Service Department and product quality control at Dutch Antillean Express.  At the same time the company needed a Manager for the Cabin Attendants, which was offered to me as well.  
Because my peers knew I spoke fluently and taught different languages I was asked to do simultaneous translation work at many international conferences, trainings, meetings, presentations and websites in the various leading languages. Since 1996, I have been translating in Papiamentu, Spanish, English, Dutch and French. My most enjoyable translation work was having the opportunity to work on a Rotary Foundation Curacao project translating child books, “FLUP” and “Aprel” published in 2006. And lately, in 2015 I was asked to be the editor for the prestigious colorful online magazine DiValiZia.

Over a period of years, I received various additional studies and trainings, such as different languages, Marketing, Fashion Merchandising to stay abreast with current development. My diversified working and teaching experiences enable me to analyze, study, coach and recommend practical business behavior code in any work area in any language.
Working constructively with many types of people is something I enjoy immensely. I go out of my way to serve you well and for you to excel!  My enthusiasm, sincere approach, trust, responsibility, commitment and openness will build a long lasting pleasant business working relationship. I do what I love and love what I do.

Honors
In 1982 I was elected and honored with the title of Miss Curacao. I participated at the Miss Universe beauty pageant in Lima, Peru. During my reign I represented our island of Curacao at various informal and formal events locally and internationally. I had the opportunity to walk on fashion runways locally and internationally, to produce and host my own fashion/talk show television program, to coach other beauty pageants and to write my own fashion column in a local leading morning newspaper.